Director – Jim McCullough Sr.

Cast – Bill Thurman, Anna Chappell, Will Mitchel, Virginia Loridans Major Brock, James Bradford, Amy Hill, Marian Jones, Gregg Brazzel, Jill King

Release Year – 1986

Reviewed by John of the Dead

I first read about this very low-budget 80s slasher a long while back and honestly forgot about it until coming across it yesterday. Going into this piece I was very excited due to my strong love for these 80s slasher experiences and my usual hope that one of them will be that hidden gem I have been looking for. While Mountaintop Motel Massacre is far from a hidden gem I did find enough joy in it to warrant a mostly-positive review thanks to the usual fun cheese that makes these flicks so much fun to watch.

Now released after spending years in an insane asylum, the lovely old caretaker of the Mountaintop Motel is far from “cured” and returns to her old ways when a thunderstorm forces new patrons to stay the night in the only motel and human slaughterhouse on the mountain.

I don’t care if these storylines have been used a thousand times, I will never get tired of people getting caught up in heinous events occurring in seedy places. Escaped mental patients make for an easy killers, and enjoyable ones at that, and when you give a killer none other than an old lady who looks like the typical sweet grandmother you have my devout attention. Slasher films with an old lady as the antagonist are not a new idea (Friday the 13th anyone?) but it is one that is seldom used and I applaud writer/director Jim McCullough Sr. for employing this awesome tactic that few have the guts to use. Despite a decent amount of horror early on it does take a long while before the real mayhem kicks in, roughly an hour into this 90 minute film, and despite this long wait we are given some good horror once things get rolling via Evelyn delivering the goods with a scythe. An abundance of characters provides for many kill sequences, and watching these likeable characters enjoying themselves, anticipating a good time in the secluded motel rooms on a rainy night, made the killings even more fun as they found themselves victim to the most unlikeliest of killers. We get more than just the awesome usage of Evelyn hacking up her tenants with a scythe as the first harasses them by placing snakes, rats, and roaches into their rooms, which helped the pacing during the long wait before the goods kicked in.

McCullough’s direction was enjoyable and reminiscent of the usual execution of these films. The atmosphere is good and the sets work well, and his execution of the actors, especially Anna Chappell as Evelyn, was exactly as it should have been We get good live-action FX and plenty of gore from the Evelyn-induced kills, although I did wish they were a bit more creative despite the cool usage of the scythe. The musical score is what really stood out to me, and I applaud the filmmakers for giving us one of the most haunting scores I have heard in a long time and one that definitely helped set the tone for this flawed but mostly-enjoyable slasher experience.

Overall, Mountaintop Motel Massacre is another cheesy 80s slasher that despite many faults manages to deliver good horror in enjoyable fashion. The story moves a bit too slow for my liking and takes too long to deliver what I want to see, but when the horror does kick in we get nothing but sweet gory kill sequences from a killer seldom used in the genre.

Rating: 6/10